Tonyblack wrote:People have problems with wisdom teeth because their dental care is too good. In past times enough teeth would have fallen out so that when the wisdom teeth arrived there would be no problem with them erupting.

I should think that the case here is the same as for cancer - it has no effect on reproduction, so there's no evolutionary pressure. Probably the jaw shortened as the diet changed, which also meant that there was no need to replace teeth, but they just never went away. If you go back to before we discovered sugar, teeth were a lot better anyway. Also, a lot of people would have died before their wisdom teeth grew (and not everyone gets them).

From an evolutionary point of view, once you've made babies your work here is done.

I read somewhere that before the invention of antibiotics, death through infected teeth and gums was about the fourth biggest killer in Europe.

“Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions.” – Blaise Pascal

Phoenix wrote:All these foodstuffs-as-Alzheimers-cures make me wonder if the dark chocolate one ever came up for it? It's one of the tastier miracle cures out there ... Some random chocolate company actually funded a study into the benefits of dark choc for ME/CFS- it didn't really work, but lots of us keep trying anyway